TreMOR RESISTANT SPOON

WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL TREMORS?

According to the Mayo Clinic, essential tremors are:

a nervous system (neurological) disorder that causes involuntary and rhythmic shaking. It can affect almost any part of your body, but the trembling occurs most often in your hands — especially when you do simple tasks, such as drinking from a glass or tying shoelaces.

In the United States, over 2% of the population are estimated to suffer from this condition.

In March of 2020, I explored this topic as part of my studio coursework at Carnegie Mellon University School of Design. I wanted to test the feasibility of using fluid simulations to accelerate an iterative design process. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was valuable to explore non-material methods for development.

HOW MIGHT WE DESIGN A SPOON FOR PEOPLE WITH ESSENTIAL TREMORS?

This question has been asked many times before, and has received many answers. Some of these involve active stabilization, driven by computer controlled precision motors. The S’up Spoon takes a far more elegant approach: requiring no moving parts, the shape of the vessel is fashioned to retain contents. Considering these two approaches, I decided to explore the latter.

Like the S’up Spoon, my approach was to optimize the shape of the vessel, and address the ergonomic needs of the user’s body. The first task was to develop a repeatable simulation, to aid in the iterative design process. I evaluated two 3D tools: Blender and Maxon Cinema 4D.

FAIL EARLY, FAIL OFTEN

Setting up a virtual experiment required a few essentials:

• stability

• timely computes

• simple